Research
Proposed dialect map of Arabic-speaking world
sociolinguistic Variation
I'm interested in how L2 learners of Arabic can acquire sociolinguistic variation in both vocabulary and grammar. I use programs such as Gorilla Experiment Builder and SuperLab to design a psycholinguistic experiments mimicking the learning processes of an integrated Arabic curriculum (i.e. Modern Standard Arabic alongside a dialect). I am interested in understanding how multiple registers are represented and processed in the learner's mind.
Please click here to see a presentation of my research at the 2020 Middle East Studies Association Conference
multimodal input
Drs. Tetyanya Sydorenko, Maribel Montero-Perez, and Mónica Stella Cárdenas Claros and I are working on a large-scale multi-site survey to assess how teachers of foreign languages actually perceive and utilize different types of multimodal input (MMI) in their practice, and what factors may lead to the adoption of different MMI technologies in the classroom.
Additionally, with Drs. Susan Gass and Paula Winke of Michigan State University, I explored how Arabic L2 learners can learn vocabulary while watching captioned videos. We were able to capture fine-grained online measures of lexical processing using the EyeLink 1000 eye tracker.
Bibliometrics
Recently I've been introduced to bibliometrics as a tool for visualizing trends across a field. Drs. Susan Gass and Luke Plonsky and I contributed to a volume honoring the work of Dr. Michael Long by illustrating, through bibliometrics, just how expansive his impact has been on the field of Second Language Acquisition.
I'm hoping to complete more bibliometric analyses to show how studies in L2 Arabic have evolved over time.
Eye tracking
Eye tracking is a research tool that allows us to try and capture what learners are paying attention to in real time when engaged in a task.
Eye tracking can help us answer questions such as: can L2 learners of Arabic pick up novel morphology through reading alone? Drs. Lama Nassif and Ayman Mohamed and I utilized the Eye Tracking Lab at Michigan State University to explore incidental acquisition of geminate verbs.
Please click here to see a presentation of our research at the 2020 UM Arabic Applied Linguistics Conference
